And I am an employee for a competitor. That is a terrible business decision. Since you work for the company, please, explain to us out in la la land what the benefit of AT&T putting into place a policy like that is. Protecting their financial interests? "You have to prove to AT&T that you are reliable to pay your bill on time before they take a risk of subsidizing an other phone for you"? Sounds to me like AT&T came up with some policies to further enhance their greed to get paid. Like I posted below, if someone is that much of a financial risk their services should just be terminated. Most carriers have clauses in their service agreements which indicate that a company reserves the right to terminate your service if your credit score and or payment history changes for the worst. Hanging someones upgrade on a fishing line and running with it in front of them while we are in a recession status economy is really an outrageous business decision. I know a woman who had 5 lines with AT&T, billed out $350 per month to the company, and after 2 1/2 years and paying late 3 times she was out of contract but could not upgrade. She switched to another company, pays late once in a while like normal people do sometimes, and she has yet to ever have her upgrade dates moved on her. I would give feedback to your company. Terrible business decision and even worse way to try and retain customers. As soon as this information becomes widespread and customers really understand what is being done and AT&T is exposed for it, churn will increase. People don't want to be told they cannot upgrade because they paid late a few times. Why don't you start issuing credits for free months of service every time you have an outage or a service related issue that impacts the customer? Make it a 2 way street. And by the looks of the other posters that are stating they are employees making it sound like its a benefit or perk of being an AT&T customer, it sounds like no one here has the right mindset. Customer's come first, and AT&T in my opinion has always been about greed. Historically it seems they've always had the highest security deposit for risky customers (somewhere in the realm of $1,000.00 per line), they've always had the most stringent billing policies(6 months of perfect payment history to get approved for a payment arrangement), and now they just keep moving your upgrade date if you pay late. Sounds like their in a hurry to lose customers. AT&T has no obligation to give you another discount, they also have no desire to maintain incentive and retain someone's business. Why don't you come out with some policies that benefit the customer and aren't about greed and get the mindset out that customer's need to prove themselves. The only thing a customer needs to do is realize that if they pay late a couple times they will be shafted out of their upgrades for periods of time and switch to another company. Let me guess, your company has so much money and such low churn it doesn't need all of its customers right? Terrible terrible business decision.
